Helping Baby Boomers to continue to earn income, as long as they want

11/27/2016

Cover Letter - 5 Tips for Pitching Cold

Way back in the mid 1970s, breakthrough job search guide "What Cold Is Your Parachute?" told us the scoop on landing the plum positions.

At the top of list was the mandate: Pitch to organizations which haven't put out there official help-wanted notices. The statistic was and still is that almost half the good jobs (and assignments) result from those cold pitches. Back then it was through snail mail. Now it's through email, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

The challenge is how to create just the right pitch. Here are 5 tips:

Focus everything on the recipient. This is about those who can make you on offer. Not about you. In fact, the search for work is never about you.

Create a subject head which leads them to open or read on. That has to do directly with their needs or wants. For example, "Boost CTAs 20%+"

Zero in on them in opening sentence. Best to include name of contact and that of the organization.

Compress what you can accomplish in a few sentences.

Give a CTA. "You owe it to yourself to give me 5 minutes to make your digital marketing get better results at less costs. After 5 minutes, you can chase me away." Shark Tank's Lori Grenier used that pitch successfully with JCPenney. The rest is history.

The rate of return on cold pitches is low. But the bites you do get are a cut above. My most stimulating, well-paying assignments come from cold emailing.